Whither the winged melody makers?

I was pleasantly surprised when I heard the warble of a nightingale in close proximity. It came as a whiff of fresh air in the wilderness, or rather a magical melody amid a mechanical, monotonous sound of a moving train. Before I could indulge myself in the soulful sound, I got a jolt when I found the person sitting beside me pull out a phone from his pocket, and I realised that the nightingale song was, in fact, a ringtone.

However, I could not help appreciating the person’s choice for this melodious ringtone. The sound for a moment had transported me to the Arcadian world of, what Keats called, the ‘light-winged Dryad of the trees’, alien to our present-day towns and cities.

I reminisced how on hearing the sound, we would wander in the vicinity to locate the bird. We would provoke the minstrel, mistaking it for a female, saying loudly: ‘Kaan gaya pardes; koel kalli’ (crow has gone abroad, so the koel is lonely). And when the bird cried: ‘ku hu… ku hu’, we were amused that the nightingale had retorted.

Chirping and cheeping, cawing and crowing of fowls and fledglings were, then, an integral part of life. The rooster’s crowing was a waking call. The chirping of sparrows declared the dawn. Cooing of pigeons, screaming of peacocks and squawking of parrots marked the morning. Song of starlings and swallows was a whole-day treat.

Interestingly, the crow’s cawing heralded the arrival of an important mail or a guest. The lady of the house would often plead: ‘Ud kaanwa tenu gheo di choori pawaan/Liah sneha sohney veer da tere vaari vaari jawaan’ (O crow! I will give you crushed bread with sugar and butter if you bring my brother’s message).

Even the raucous sound of a braying donkey was a good omen. Similarly, the sight of a peacock while going on a journey was considered lucky. Also, a sparrow building a nest in the corner of a house signalled good fortune. The young and old, all loved to feed sparrows. They would come very close, and sometimes even perch on the head or shoulder of the person feeding them. Such was the bond between humans and the feathered folk.

Unfortunately, this warm presence of the passerines is fast disappearing. They seem to have gone into exile, leaving us with no choice but to be contented with recorded representations of robins and ravens, thrushes and nightingales. Exclaims an Urdu poet: ‘Ab to chup-chap subah aur shaam hoti hai/Pehle subh-o-shaam goonjate thei nagame parindon ke’ (Now silently, day dawns and night falls. Earlier, songs of birds could be heard from dawn to dusk).

Devoid of the divine ditties of the ‘nimble musicians of air’, we stand poorer. But as observes a senior global science officer at BirdLife International, everything is reversible because everything is, unfortunately, of humankind’s making. If suitable habitat and food source are secured for birds, they will survive and stay, and once again our abodes and dwellings will reverberate with their warbles.